


In Fields of Gold

by freddiejoey



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-31
Updated: 2011-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-23 07:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freddiejoey/pseuds/freddiejoey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death comes whispering.......</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Fields of Gold

Part One

You'll remember me when the west wind moves  
Upon the fields of barley  
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky  
As we walk in the fields of gold

Kai knows the signs.Well,after ten years he should. When my mortar and pestle come out and I start crushing herbs and berries and mushrooms in such a demented fashion, pounding and bruising, he can certainly calculate that the journey to the red tent is imminent. If he is clever – and my husband is that – he will stay well away and tread very warily otherwise. Now, however, it seems to be one of his less artful days. He hovers uncertainly in the doorway of my hut. “Well?” I sign the word curtly. Kai bites his lip and watches while a pile of raspberries are angrily reduced to thick sweet pulp. “Arthur, Llud and I are riding out to the river valley. There's a report of an armed party moving through the area.” “Hurry and go, then” and I add a less than complimentary gesture for good measure. I sit back on my heels and sigh. With Llud gone, it means that the children will be under foot all afternoon- including two boisterous two year olds.......Suddenly I am grabbed and soundly kissed before I can dart away quickly enough. Kai is nothing if not courageous – and undoubtedly foolhardy at times as well. Like right now. “Beautiful girl.” I have never been the first and are no longer the second. I look up at my impudently grinning husband and cannot help breaking into a smile. “Aren't you supposed to be going?.....go then.” He laughs, winks at me from the doorway and strides away. I see him telling Theo and Cedric to behave – yes, I think taking up my pestle again, just until your delicious bottom in those close-fitting brown breeches is comfortably settled on your horse and out the gate. I admit defeat and put aside my medicinal tasks for another day. Now, where are Maeve and Luc hiding?

Llud is already riding out of the palisade gate, shouting to his sons to hurry up and follow when Kai swings on to the back of his horse. Arthur comes hurtling out of the longhouse and vaults astride his own white horse. He gathers in the reins and then pauses for a heartbeat and cups his hand around the nape of his brother’s neck, under Kai’s soft blonde hair – hair the same gold as the barley blowing gently in the west wind on the ridge above the village. I see Kai’s answering shiver and know that his brown eyes will be dreamy with love – as they have never been in exactly the same way for me. Then it is over – one blink and you would never notice - and “Hah!” - they are thundering out the gate, overtaking their father, laughing back at him. I wonder idly if any one else ever does discern anything . The gods alone know what they think if they do. Kai is one of the most overtly affectionate husbands that I have ever encountered – as evidenced by my disorderly blonde brood - and although I cannot even count, on one hand, the number of times that Arthur has been openly demonstrative toward Rowena outside of the longhouse, something has obviously happened inside to produce her two dark-haired replicas of our Celtic chieftain. Others may simply assume that we live a very peculiar life; as I suppose we do - peculiarly happy.

Rowena is teaching Kaitlin to ride. She's a natural of course, perched up there wearing a pair of Cedric's breeches. Why not – she has a father who can do tricks on horseback and a mother who, when riding, can challenge the wind for speed. At the moment, the lesson is taking a less than happy turn. Rowena is trying to tell her daughter how the horse needs to take her weight – and is being challenged by a pair of infuriated Celtic blue eyes. “I already know that.” Kaitlin turns a look upon her mother that is pure Arthur. I try not to smile. Frustrated, Rowena tells her daughter that will be enough – to run along and find the boys. Gleefully Kaitlin jumps down and scampers off. Rowena dismounts in a fluid leap and comes over to stand beside me. “I don't know where that girl got such a dose of stubbornness.” Even if I could, I would say nothing. With two such headstrong parents, poor Kaitlin never stood a chance. Anyway, judging by the usual harbingers, Rowena soon won't be on horseback for several months. Arthur doesn't know yet. That man wouldn't notice certain things unless they smacked him smartly on his silky black head – and sometimes not even then. I'm aware that Rowena must ride north to visit Yorath next week – she will probably tell her husband after she returns. So a winter birth – a Nativity baby. I walk thoughtfully into the longhouse. Perhaps after that I will leave the eagle-stones tucked away beneath my bed again too.............

It is a few hours before dusk when the busy throbbing that has been thrumming at the edges of my temples all afternoon suddenly explodes into a spasm of pain that bends me over doubled. I straighten up slowly, gasping. I have been standing at the hearth, cutting the feet off and slitting the bellies of a pile of rabbits – never a pleasant job, but made more bearable by the memory of Benedicta’s feeble attempts. Now the sight of their bloody innards sicken me. Rowena is sitting at the main table, keeping Maeve and Luc amused with a collection of toy animals that Llud has lovingly carved for them. I slam my hand hard against the wood to get her attention and frantically sign. “We’ll feed the children now – and us. You need to at least eat in the evening since all your breakfast is going into the slop pail each morning.” Rowena isn’t even faintly surprised that I have guessed – she knows me far too well by now – but she is frowning. “Leni, what’s wrong?” I shake my head, throwing the half-ravaged rabbits carelessly into a basket, plunging my hands into the pail in the corner, starting to bang down bowls on to the table. Rowena says nothing, simply scoops up the two younger children and goes to call in Theo, Cedric and Kaitlin. Left alone, I put my hand to my hammering head. I hope against hope that I am wrong.

I see Llud first, leading Kai’s riderless horse. There is no doubt now –a heavy stone of dread is lodged in my stomach and my blood has turned to ice. It is almost dark and I have to strain my eyes to make out Arthur’s white horse, walking carefully, delicately toward the village. Then I start to run. Kai, half-sits, half-lies against his brother, pale as the Yuletide snows, completely insensible. Where his left side should be is a great gaping hole, blooming with splintered bone and a bleeding harvest of entrails.

Later I can only recall tiny fragments. The rest is all shattered and splintered in my mind. My first overwhelming feeling is sorrow and regret. I am sorry that I was short with Kai this morning – that I did not return his kiss – that I did not bother to stand outside the palisade and wave them off - that I have not told him a thousand more times how much I love him, that he is the best of husbands, an astounding father, that I have never regretted sharing his life for a heartbeat. Then the pragmatic healer takes over. Arthur and Llud lower him tenderly from the horse and turn in the direction of my hut. I know what they are thinking – that is where all my salves and medicines are stored. But I stop them with an emphatic gesture. “No, the longhouse.” For Kai, that will always be home. It is where he needs to be now.

In the doorway I can make out five frightened upturned little faces. Then Rowena gathers them together and shepherds them outside. As they pass me, the last thing I catch a glimpse of is Theo’s terrified brown eyes, a mirror image of his father’s. Yet I have no time to even comfort him – I must leave that to Rowena and Olwen.

Once Kai is in the bedroom, I can immerse myself in the practical business of cleaning the wound and seeing to what needs to be done. He is not yet aware which is a blessing. Llud quietly mutters something about a band of renegade Saxons as I wash and probe my husband’s hacked side. At once, I clearly see three things – it has been made by a slash from an axe; it will need to be well packed with cyrus leaves; but first it will need to be burned extremely deep.

Llud stoically makes the necessary preparations – I have seen him do this countless times before and for both his sons on occasion. Never before though have I seen him blinded by tears as he stands beside the flames. Kai is in a stupor, but still I pour a sleeping draught down his throat. When the red hot lump of fire-heated metal is ready, Llud brings it to the bedside and I hold Kai’s hands steady and brace his body. Then Llud plunges the metal against his son’s wound. I am overpowered by the stench of burning flesh. Even his insensibility and my draught are not powerful enough to deaden the pain. Kai awakens with an agonising scream.

All this while, since he helped Llud lower Kai gently on to the bed, Arthur has been standing motionless. I know this state of mind. Arthur resembles one of the statues left by the Romans at Sarum – perfectly still, cold skin, wide staring eyes, bluish fingernails and lips. His breathing is very rapid and very shallow. The only brightness is his brother’s blood - glistening on his brown tunic, matted in his black hair. He remains that way while Llud and I do what must be done . Then Kai’s agony rings out – and love enkindles Arthur back to life.

Only once do I threaten to shatter into irretrievable fragments. It is after I have wadded the cyrus leaves, given my husband another pain-deadening cordial and then kissed his forehead since there is nothing else left that I can use for a remedy. I leave Arthur sitting at the bedside, murmuring “My Kai, my heart.” It is the best medicine Kai can be offered in all the world anyway. So I step outside the longhouse for a moment so the cool air can whisper against my hot face. It is then that it happens. I am crushed by a wave of sorrow so intense that I collapse to the ground. In one of Arthur’s big books I once read about an unprofitable servant who was cast into the outer darkness and was condemned to weeping and the gnashing of teeth. That is how I feel now. I think a thousand thoughts in a heartbeat. I wish that I already carried another blonde baby inside me. I wish that I had the faith of a monk. I wish that just for a moment I could have been first in my husband’s heart. I wish that today was yesterday. Yet I don’t and I never have been and it isn’t. So I straighten up and return inside. I am a healer and a healer must never lose hope.

Kai has fallen into a fevered restless sleep. I know what it is a precursor to – but there are more practical matters at hand and practicality will at least allow me to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I persuade Arthur that his brother will sleep for a few hours and leaving Llud keeping vigil at Kai’s bedside, I take him into the main room of the longhouse. I have heated water to wash his snarled hair and bloodied body and set out fresh clothes. Arthur cleans himself, but dresses again in the tunic drenched with Kai’s blood. Somehow he understands what is to happen – even if he does not yet know what he understands.

We sit for the rest of the night, waiting. Kai’s breathing is erratic and he drifts in and out of a stupor. I hold a furious debate within myself, trying to resolve whether to fetch my children - but, at last decide to leave them sleeping. I remember the terror in Theo’s eyes. Let their memories of their father be of him whole and laughing. They will always know how much he loved them. Arthur weeps silently and Llud stands, dry-eyed in some terrible place beyond grief. I can make out some of what Arthur murmurs to his brother in a low tender voice throughout the night. Some of it is easy to understand: “I love you…. Fight my Kai fight…….you cannot leave me.” Other parts I cannot bear to interpret because my own heart is already breaking. Arthur talks softly about the summer he was sixteen, when his hands shook, his palms sweat, he could hold no rational thought in his head and his heart swelled so prodigiously that he thought he would suffocate – the summer that he fell in love with Kai. How being with Kai makes him happy all day. About the times he has sobbed uncontrollably because of everything he will never be. And how every moment he has been privileged to spend with his brother has been beautiful and wonderful, when everything has been right with the world simply because Kai is in it.

Toward morning I silently steal to the bedside. Kai’s fever has not abated and the edges of his wound are an angry crimson. I know exactly what it means – but I will never know if he knew we were there. I simply nod at Llud. He presses his lips fiercely against Kai’s sweat-tangled hair one last time. I bend and do the same. My throat is being throttled with unshed tears and I am glad that I have never been able to speak – no words could ever encompass this bleak swell of anguish. I leave Arthur beside his brother and quietly close the door behind me. I know that when I next enter that room it will be as a widow.

I also know what I will soon need - as a healer, I have made these preparations many many times. My husband is a warrior – a Celtic warrior, irrespective of his Saxon birth. He will be interred in a burial mound with full honours. Lying beside him will be his weapons and shields, his tools and jewellery. Arthur will place his ceremonial helmet on his head and my sons will place coins and a whetstone under their father’s hands. Llud will then fasten his embroidered shroud with a ritual stitch. Then it will be over. I will go on as a relict and Arthur – Arthur’s heart will be forever carved from ice and wind because it will no longer have a home.

Part Two

I must have fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. I wake up with my head lying on the longhouse table. It is full morning but very still. From the bedroom there is absolute silence. Llud is gone and I can guess where – back out to the river valley, tracking, with an armed party of his own. I can prophesise that not many renegade Saxons will see the sunset tonight. I put my head in my hands for a moment. I know now that I will never traverse this wilderness of desolation inside me. From now on it will be a part of every breath I draw in, every step that I tread. Yet I have my children, Kai’s children. I have Rowena, feisty Kaitlin, little blue-eyed Luc and the coming child. I have the love of Llud and Olwen. I have the strength of Arthur. I will survive because I must.

My husband was the most courageous man I have ever known. I must have courage now, in his memory, in his name. Walking toward the bedroom and softly pulling open the door takes more resolution than I ever thought to possess. The first thing I see is Arthur. He is sitting on the edge of the bed, straight-backed and very calm. “Leni” – one word, the start of the rest of my life. He holds out a tentative hand and I clutch it tightly. Then, at last, I gather enough mettle to glance at the bed behind him – and suddenly I am running, bounding, slipping, falling, flailing myself to my feet again. I have never wished more in my life that I possessed a voice – that I could speak, shout, yell, scream to the world. Like a totally moonblasted idiot, I hurl myself up to my hut and thunder on the door. Rowena appears, pale and fragile, after a sleepless night. She obviously thinks that I have been driven demented by grief. But suddenly she interprets what my shaking, flying, frantic fingers are so desperately trying to tell her – “Kai lives, Kai lives, Kai lives.” Finally I do something that I have never done in my life before – I fall down in a dead faint at her feet.

So what do I know? I know that with so grievous a wound, Kai was not destined to live. That when I was steady again and able to inspect his wound, I found that the edges were still the colour of a ferocious blushing rose, but that his fever – the enemy that always slays in those bereft night hours after a battle – had abated. That it would take many days, perhaps more than a season, yet he would recover. That Llud’s methodical burning prevented infection – certainly. That my draughts and cyrus leaves played their part – undoubtedly. But if you simply ask me what saved Kai, then I will give you a simple answer – the tenacity of his brother’s love………

“In the name of the gods, what do you think you are doing?” My fingers flash furiously through the air. Kai grins, hobbling past me, leaning heavily against Arthur. “Just going riding my pretty. Down to the river. We’ll be back in a few hours.” He kisses the top of my head playfully, in reparation. I am so incensed that if I were not already speechless, rage would render me so anyway. It is far too soon. Kai shouldn’t attempt getting back on to a horse for weeks yet – and he’s well aware of it. I turn angrily to Arthur. “This is all your fault. I’m blaming you.” Arthur looks at me with wide perfectly innocent blue eyes. “But Leni, it’s all Kai’s idea.” I throw my hands up in despair. I know when I’m defeated.

Rowena comes out of the longhouse to stand beside me. She has had to give up her breeches long ago – this baby has rounded her out much earlier than the other two and is already making its presence felt. I suspect that the longhouse will soon be sheltering two vandals of tableware. The thought cheers me and I smile serenely at Arthur. He notices the smile and narrows his eyes in suspicion. I just continue to beam.

Kai is now astride his black horse and I breathe a sigh of relief. Actually up there he looks lovely – no, much better than lovely, beautiful and strong and alive. I glance at Arthur who is gazing at his brother transfixed for a heartbeat. It is the look of someone intoxicatingly in love. Rowena turns to her husband. “Don’t ride too far. I’m going to be left here to suffer Leni’s reproaches all afternoon.” Then Arthur does something I have never seen him do before – right here, in sight of the whole village, he swings Rowena off her feet and kisses her – on the forehead, true – but remember, it is Arthur. She blushes as brightly as the ruby in my marriage ring that once belonged to Llud’s wife. “Now woman, roast boar for dinner I think” he says mischievously and laughs. Of course this is a joke – Rowena is no doubt the worst cook within our Celtic kingdom and her father’s Jutish province combined. But why be surprised? It is a well known fact that happiness breeds happiness.

A few hours later I ask Rowena to keep an eye on Maeve and Luc. I need to go to the woods and gather some horse mushrooms for supper. Rowena has been dreamy-eyed and vacuous since Arthur and Kai left. After that display outside the longhouse, I could announce that I was running away to marry Cerdig and she would simply nod happily. I sigh and hurry off. In the high meadow behind the village, I can see Llud giving Kaitlin, Theo and Cedric their riding lessons. There is no defiance from Arthur’s daughter when her adoring grandfather is providing instruction. That little minx knows exactly how to choose her targets.   
I go further into the woods than I intended but eventually my apron is full. I turn for home thinking pleasant thoughts. Here is the truth. I am the luckiest of women –and the cleverest – because I chose Kai. If he is well enough to ride……..in ten days or so the moon will be waning……….and this time the eagle stones will remain firmly tucked away beneath my bed.

It is then that I spy Arthur and Kai’s horses – one black and one white – tethered beside the water to graze. I do not see them but then the thickets grow bushy and tall right down to the river’s edge there………Quietly smiling, I walk back to the longhouse, remembering an whispered exchange from a few days after we first realised the miracle that Kai would live - “Make me happy Kai”, “What must I do little brother?” “Just breathe.”


End file.
